


Caleb Cleveland and the Case of the Missing Memories

by Vigs



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: "Let's take this child away from his perfectly happy life and put him to work on the moon", Angus is a genius, Angus' life is pretty crappy to start with, Caleb Cleveland, Currently canon-compliant, Gen, How Angus found the BoB, I don't think even Lucretia would be like, Kid Cop, and will probably stay that way, but who knows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-04 09:09:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11552046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vigs/pseuds/Vigs
Summary: "He didn’t have parents. Everybody had parents. The two facts were contradictory and both true, and trying to juxtapose them made his head buzz, and sometimes he would forget what he was doing."How do you investigate something you can't even think about? Angus finds a way.





	1. Angus Writes a Fanfic

**Author's Note:**

> One week after the Murder on the Rockport Limited

Angus had been more than a little worried that he would be roasted or eaten for losing nearly all of the silverware set, but his grandfather (really, his great-great-grandfather) had been surprisingly calm about it. It was still difficult for Angus to predict the actions of the old brass dragon, presumably because Angus was just more used to humans (and was only a little bit of a dragon himself).

“There’s no shame in losing a bit of your hoard to a powerful wizard at your age,” Grandfather had said kindly. “Tribute can wait. What matters is that you’re all right.”

So the visit had been perfectly pleasant in that regard, but the hatchling’s area of Grandfather’s cave didn’t really have many amenities for a human-sized and -shaped person, so he was pretty glad to be back in Rockport. Grandfather even flew him there so he wouldn’t have to ride the train again so soon, which was unnecessary but kind. Sometimes he wished that Grandfather would stay with him, but dragons didn’t raise their young after they were old enough to feed themselves.

It was good to be back in his tiny apartment (which he rented with his own money, from finder’s fees and so on). It didn’t have a kitchen or anything, but that was fine because he couldn’t cook anyway, and there was a restaurant just down the block that would feed him for free because he’d taught all the servers there how to spot people who were going to dine and dash.

What it did have was a desk, which was where he was currently sitting, poking at the staticky parts of his mind. It had never gotten him anywhere before, but now he’d met people who sometimes opened their mouths and had nothing but static come out, people who confirmed it was because of a magical effect.

He wrote down the facts he knew about himself.

  * Angus McDonald is eleven years old.
  * Angus McDonald is one-sixteenth brass dragon, one-eighth elf, and thirteen-sixteenths human.
  * Angus McDonald’s only living relative is his great-great-grandfather.
  * Angus McDonald’s parents--



His pencil broke. He didn’t have parents. Everybody had parents. The two facts were contradictory and both true, and trying to juxtapose them made his head buzz, and sometimes he would forget what he was doing.

But he could think about other people’s parents. He could _make up_ stories about parents…

What if he tried to write his own Caleb Cleveland story? Just for fun. The author of those stories kept Caleb’s life outside of detective work vague, to keep him an “everykid”; it never even specified if he was a human or an elf or a halfling or what. So maybe it would be okay for him to make up his own version.

He cleared any other thoughts out of his mind. He was just doing this for fun. Planning for a story he might write.

  * Caleb Cleveland is eleven years old.
  * Caleb Cleveland is one-sixteenth gold dragon, one eighth elf, and thirteen sixteenths human.



Wouldn’t that be fun, if Caleb was part-dragon? What would that imply?

  * One of Caleb’s great-grandparents was a half-dragon, half-human.
  * One was an elf.
  * The rest were humans.
  * One of Caleb’s grandparents was a quarter-dragon, three-quarters human.
  * One was a half-human, half-elf.
  * The rest were human.
  * One of Caleb’s parents was one-eighth dragon, seven-eighths human.
  * The other was one-quarter elf, three-quarters human.



It wouldn’t have to go that way, of course--they could have been mixed together differently--but let’s go with that. He was just making it up, after all!

  * Everybody has or had parents, so Caleb Cleveland has or had parents.
  * Caleb can’t remember his parents ever being around.
  * Caleb can remember that all four of his grandparents died, either when he was very young or before he was born.
  * Caleb can’t remember anybody raising him.
  * If nobody raised a baby, it would die.
  * Caleb didn’t die. Therefore, somebody raised him.
  * Most people are raised by their parents. Therefore, Caleb’s parents probably raised him.
  * Something was keeping Caleb from remembering his parents.



Boy, what an interesting made-up mystery for the kid cop to solve! This would be a fun story to write. Angus focused on that thought and waited for the words on the paper to swim back into focus.

  * There are incredibly powerful magical artifacts involved.



Not because of anything that happened on a train! Just because it would take powerful magic to stop Caleb from remembering his parents.

So step one in Caleb’s investigation plan would be researching powerful magical artifacts, especially any that people seemed to have forgotten.

Maybe Angus would do that himself, too. Just as research for his story.


	2. Angus McDonald and the Mystery of the Moldy Millet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus is hot on the trail of...something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So excited by the positive response to this story! I have other TAZ fics planned too, some of which actually feature the protagonists, lol.

Researching magical artifacts was interesting, but Angus didn’t turn up anything that he could use for his story, not directly. Some of the library books had pages that couldn’t be read. Or rather, he could read them, he could physically move his eyes along the lines, but the words slipped through his mind without leaving a memory, even if he tried his hardest to hold onto the idea that he was reading fiction. A few whole books were like that.

Well, what would Caleb do if his research came up with the same result? (In his story, the entirely fictional story that Angus was going to write.) Caleb would probably conclude that there was more missing than just his parents, since they probably wouldn’t have had whole books listed as magic artifact references about them. Maybe it was even a  _ lot _ more than just his parents.

So...maybe Caleb would look at some history books. Recent history, history that included 11 years ago. Now that Angus had picked up the habit of noticing pages and sections that his eyes slid past, it was easier to do. Here was a history book with the whole last chapter unreadable. Here was a book about cities of Faerûn with blank sections.

Angus sat down at a desk to write.

_ Caleb frowned down at the cover of “Cities of Faerûn.” A whole city couldn’t just disappear, he was sure of it. Cities don’t exist in isolation. They’re connected to transportation, close to bodies of water, surrounded by farmland. _

_ Farmland...that could be the key. What would the farmers who normally sold food to a city do if that city was suddenly gone? _

A while ago, Angus had solved a case for the Rockport representative of the Roundtree merchant family, a very wealthy halfling whose beloved pomeranian had run off with his ledgers. Angus got back the dog and the documents without drawing attention to Mr. Roundtree’s predicament. Surely Caleb Cleveland would have a merchant who owed him a favor as well.

“Thanks for seeing me, Mr. Roundtree,” Angus said. Halfling houses were very comfortable for eleven-year-olds, and his host had provided him with lunch.

“Don’t mention it, my boy,” Roundtree said. “You asked if I could answer some questions. Is this for a case of yours?”

“Not exactly,” Angus said. “It’s research. My question is sort of sensitive, sir, but I promise I’m not working for anyone who’s looking to compete with you. I’ll say it in a Zone of Truth if you like.”

“Interesting. What’s the question?”

“Is there anywhere that crops--grain, produce, anything fresh-grown--are particularly cheap? Exceptionally cheap, I mean, like there’s suddenly way more food than there are people to eat it.”

“Well.” Roundtree leaned back, clasping his hands over his stomach. “As I’m sure you realize, I don’t exactly make a habit of distributing comparative price information.”

“I know. I don’t need any numbers or anything, sir. And it might not even be current information. I’m looking for anywhere that the food market has inexplicably collapsed over the past decade.”

“Why would you want to know that?”

“It’s for a book I’m writing,” Angus said.

“Going from detective to scholar, are you?”

“Something like that.”

Roundtree looked hard at him for a moment, then sighed.

“I suppose it’s not really a secret,” he said. “Anyone with an extensive enough trade network to take advantage of the situation already knows. There’s an area between Neverwinter and the Sword Mountains where ever since the last harvest, the farmers can barely give their crops away. It’s lowered food prices for everyone who sells to Neverwinter.”

“I see,” Angus said, writing in his notebook. “Any idea why it happened?”

“I’m no farmer. They must have had a hell of a bumper crop, I suppose.”

“Thank you, Mr. Roundtree. That’s very helpful.”

“You’re welcome, lad. Tell you what, bring me your manuscript when it’s finished and I’ll put in a word with our publishing house.”

“Wow, that would be super of you!”

It would have been irresponsible of Angus to buy a train ticket just to do research for a story he was writing, but luckily, the Rockport Limited had promised him free rides for life. He worked on his rough draft during the ride.

_ Caleb paced in his office, thinking out loud. _

_ “If a whole city disappeared, there must be so many people missing family members,” he said. “Why hasn’t anybody else noticed? Why aren’t there hundreds of people out looking?” _

_ Caleb knew that he was more curious and better at deductive reasoning than most people, but there must be so many other kids whose parents were missing, kids who didn’t have a way to support themselves like he did. _

_ Well, maybe their other family members would have taken them in. Caleb’s grandfather would have, if he wasn’t a dragon. And anyone who didn’t have family or the resources to live on their own...well, there were plenty of kids who didn’t know what had happened to their parents in plenty of orphanages. _

That might be a little dark for a Caleb Cleveland book, Angus realized. But it was true. Even if lots of kids realized that it was weird how they didn’t have parents, not many would have the freedom Caleb had to try to track them down.

The train reached Neverwinter in the early afternoon, and Angus headed for the market. As Roundtree had suggested, several things were unusually cheap. One farmer in particular had piles and piles of unmilled grains for sale, which no one seemed interested in buying.

Angus bought himself a pastry and found a spot to eat and to do more writing.

_ “Of course,” Caleb said, looking at the piles of grain. “There must have been a mill in the city that disappeared. Flour usually comes to Neverwinter already processed, so no one wants to buy unmilled grain. The farmer probably could have thought of something else to do with it if he had realized that something was different this year, but he knows that he usually sells raw grain, and he thinks nothing has changed.” _

_ Caleb headed towards the grain merchant. Time to gather some information. The missing city must have been in whichever direction they came from. _

“Hello, sir!” Angus said to the farmer who sat beside the piles of grain. His face was mostly hidden beneath a wide-brimmed straw hat. “My name is Angus McDonald, and--”

“Beat it, kid, I don’t have any change,” the man said.

“Oh, I’m not looking for change, sir.” Angus glanced down at his sweatervest, tie, and neatly pressed slacks, wondering what it was about him that led the man to that conclusion, and mentally filed it away as something odd. “I’m trying to find my aunt.”

“Don’t have any aunts, either.”

“She lives on a farm between here and the Sword Mountains,” Angus continued undeterred, “So I’ve been trying to find someone who might be able to give me a ride that way.”

“I’m from out that way,” the man said, sounding slightly friendlier. “What’s her name?”

“Well, sir, her name  _ was _ Charity McDonald, but she got married and I don’t know what it is now.”

“You don’t know her name? How’re you hoping to find her, then? Sword Mountains are a ways away.”

“Yes, I know. She and my father weren’t really speaking when she got married, but my father passed away and she’s the only family I’ve got left.” It was a bit of a risk, advertising that no one would come looking for him, but detectives always had to take risks.

“Ah. Sorry, kid.” The farmer sighed. “Yeah, I reckon you can come with me. Don’t think I can sell much more of this lot before it starts to mold. Name’s Alder.”

“Pleased to meet you, sir,” Angus said, holding out a hand to shake. Alder ignored it.

“You got a good pair of eyes on you?”

“Um...yes?” Angus said. “I’m a pretty observant person.”

“Good, good. Kid I hired to watch the road on the way here went back home with another wagon.” Alder tilted his head slightly, and Angus saw that the skin of his cheeks was shiny with burn scars. His eyes were still hidden.

“Well, sir, I’ll do my best.”

Watching the road for Alder was easy. His cart didn’t exactly speed down the dirt road, and the donkey who pulled it seemed to know the way pretty well. After obtaining a grunt of permission, Angus resumed work on his draft.

_ The farmer who gave Caleb a ride was blind, and his face had been burned. Caleb itched to ask how it had happened, although he knew it would be very rude to do so. Besides, if it was related to the disappeared city, he wouldn’t be able to talk about it anyway. _

_ What would that be like, to have such a life-changing injury and be unable to even think about how you got it? There must be something filling in the blanks, Caleb assumed, but maybe not. Maybe it was just static, static, static. _

_ He hoped the burns weren’t related to the city. Caleb had been thinking of the cities--of his parents--as having disappeared, maybe gone somewhere else. Maybe out there somewhere, able to be found, or maybe even right where they’d always been, just cut off from the world somehow. But those burns told him to prepare for something grimmer. _

The road from Neverwinter was broader and better-kept than a road that led only to farmland would normally be. Angus’ mind reflexively tried to draw conclusions from this, but his thoughts melted into static, and he smiled. It was always good to be on the trail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the Phandalin information, such as its location, was taken from http://forgottenrealms.wikia.com/wiki/Phandalin. I did take some liberties with its size, and added a mill.


	3. Angus McDonald and the Visitors from the Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angus finds what he's been looking for...and a huge headache.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turns out this is going to be a four-part story, not three. Thanks so much for all the positive comments!

Alder lived alone in a house with three bedrooms. Angus thought that Caleb would probably have drawn conclusions from that if he witnessed it, but decided to leave well enough alone. The story was getting a little depressing already.

“Well, you’re between Neverwinter and the Sword Mountains,” Alder said gruffly. “What’s your plan from here? I’ve got some work that needs doing around the farm, if you’d like to stay here a spell.”

“Thank you very much, sir, but I do need to find my aunt,” Angus said. “You wouldn’t happen to have a map of the farms in the area, would you?”

“Naw, but I can tell you where everything is if you want to make one.”

Alder’s knowledge of the local geography was impressive. He knew exactly how many acres each farm had, and in what dimensions. Angus worked diligently to create the map.

“...and then the Harper place runs from there to the forest. That’s everyone around here.”

“Thank you, sir, that’s very helpful.” Angus studied his drawing. “What’s between the Edermath orchard and the Smith farm?”

“Nothing. Not good farmland.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you again, sir.” He stood to leave.

“Come back here if you can’t find her, you hear?”

“I’ll do that, sir.”

It was a few miles’ walk to the unclaimed space south of the Edermath orchard. Alder’s map proved accurate; other than the occasional forested patch, the land was pretty well developed. It was unusual for an entire area to be dismissed as simply “not good.”

When he passed the Edermath orchard, he stopped. The ground was black glass. His head was full of static.

Angus sat on a blackened stump near the edge of the glass to write.

_ “What could do this?” Caleb whispered, staring in horror at the ground. He could list off the answers: an ancient red or gold dragon, an incursion from the Elemental Plane of Fire, and not much else. Had this really been a city? _

_ Had his parents been here? _

Angus looked blankly at the ground for a while. The sky was a cloudless blue, the weather hot but with a pleasant breeze, and birds sang in the trees behind him. It was good to rest his legs after the long walk. Caleb’s horror at what he saw was distant, a second-hand feeling from a story.

A glass orb fell from the sky. Angus resumed writing furiously.

_ These could be the ones that did this, Caleb thought, or they could be part of the same organization as Taako and Magnus and Merle-- _

But Caleb hadn’t met Taako and Magnus and Merle. A blinding headache hit Angus, like the postponed weight of all the static he’d put off was hitting him at once. His notebook fell off his lap as he sank his head into his hands and focused on his breathing.

When his vision cleared, three people had emerged from the sphere: a dwarf smoking a cigar, a blue dragonborn, and an orc. They all wore bracers, and the orc was holding an enormous crossbow, which wasn’t  _ quite _ pointed at Angus.

“...definitely nothing like that around,” the dragonborn said into a stone she wore on a chain around her neck. “I’m telling you, it’s just a crying human kid. I think this was a false alarm.”

“Killian, put that thing down,” the dwarf said. “You’re scaring the kid.”

“No way. I remember what a kid did to [static]. Who knows what this one has on him?”

“Well, if I get turned into peppermint, let the record show that it wasn’t your fault.” The dwarf walked over to Angus. “Hey, kid. Name’s Boyland. What’s yours?”

“A-Angus McDonald,” Angus said, and sniffed. “Pleased to meet you, sir.”

“Likewise, Angus. Can you tell me what you’re doing out here? Where are your parents?”

Another wave of static hit Angus.

“I, I c-can’t...it’s all in the…” He pointed at the notebook in front of him, which Boyland picked up. It was still open to the page Angus had been writing on, and Boyland raised his eyebrows when he saw it.

“Carey, take a look at this,” he said, and tossed the notebook to the dragonborn. She began to read.

“You know the [static]--I mean, you know Taako, Magnus, and Merle?” Boyland asked Angus.

“Yes, sir.” Focusing on that memory helped alleviate the headache, and Angus pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his eyes. “We solved a mystery together recently. Do you work for the same organization that they do?”

“I do,” Boyland said. “Do you know the name of that organization?”

“No, sir. I don’t think I can know that. It’s one of the static things.” Agnus winced. “Please don’t tell me just now, I think I overdid thinking around things a little bit.”

“Killian, Boyland, c’mere,” the dragonborn, presumably named Carey, said. She sounded a bit awed. “Look at this. He’s not [static], but he managed to work around the [static] somehow. He just met the [static] two weeks ago and he already made it to [static]!”

“Director, I think you need to meet this kid,” Boyland said into the stone around his neck.

The trip to the moon was surprisingly fast, partly because Angus was avidly observing the scenery the entire time. He’d been flying with his grandfather often enough that he wasn’t afraid of heights, but this was even higher than a dragon could fly.

When they stepped out of the sphere and into some sort of hanger, Angus’ headache returned. He kept trying to draw conclusions from his surroundings--it wasn’t really a habit he could turn off--but it was like walking into a wall made of the feeling when your foot falls asleep.

“One foot in front of the other, kid,” Boyland said encouragingly. Into his stone he said, “Director, could you meet us in the hall? The kid’s not doing great.”

A human woman with white hair and a long white staff came out to meet them, and had a largely incomprehensible conversation with the three adults. Angus  _ hated _ it. It was like when adults talked about things in front of him with laughably transparent code words or by spelling things out, except that he actually didn’t understand it and it hurt.

“We need to get him [static] right away,” Boyland said. “Look at him, he’s a mess.”

“I’m still not convinced we shouldn’t just feed the reports from this entire incident to the [static],” the human said. “This child should be with his parents.”

“He hasn’t got any,” Carey said. “And he doesn’t remember why. That’s what his journal said.”

“Is this true?” the human asked, addressing Angus for the first time. “I’m sorry, I know this can’t be comfortable for you, but I do need to ask you some questions.”

“That’s okay, ma’am,” Angus said. “As far as I can remember, I’ve never had parents.”

“Who takes care of you?”

“I do.”

“And you found [static]--I mean, you figured out everything that’s in this book on your own?”

“I did have help from Mr. Roundtree and Mr. Avis,” Angus said. “They’re--the merchant and the farmer in my story are based on them.”

“But they just answered a few questions for you. You’re the one who figured out what to ask.”

“Yes, ma’am. Can I ask why you’re asking me all this?”

“Well…” The woman sighed. “It seems that I’m offering you a job.”

**Author's Note:**

> Nobody can convince me that Angus' grandfather isn't a dragon. "He wants to see his expensive silverware before he dies"? DRAGON.


End file.
